


Connection

by izayoi_no_mikoto



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Soulmates, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-09 23:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izayoi_no_mikoto/pseuds/izayoi_no_mikoto
Summary: The first time Yuuri hears Victor Nikiforov's thoughts, he is twelve years old.





	Connection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MemeKonYA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemeKonYA/gifts).



> To MemeKonYA: I hope you enjoy this! Have a wonderful Multifandom Tropefest.

When Yuuri was five years old, his parents dressed him up in traditional clothing, a black kimono and gray-striped hakama and a navy blue haori adorned with golden cranes, and took him to celebrate Shichi-go-san at Hasetsu Shrine.  His family dressed up, too, his father wearing a suit and his mother and Mari wearing kimono.  Yuuko's family went, too, because Yuuko, two years older, was facing her last Shichi-go-san; she wore a red kimono sewn with colorful butterflies, a gold obi wrapped around her middle, and beads and flowers in her hair.

"Yuuri-kun looks so handsome," Yuuko's mother said.

"Your kimono is so pretty, Yuuko-chan!" Yuuri's mother said.

Yuuko grinned.  Yuuri plucked at the sleeve of his haori, frowning.  His zori were uncomfortable on his feet.

Hasetsu Shrine practically swarmed with families.  A corner of the shrine grounds had been given up to tented kiosks selling yakisoba, karaage chicken, and sausages; beside it was an array of plastic tables where families sat, munching and chatting.  There was also an area with carnival games and child-sized tables strewn with crayons and stamps, where children ran amok shrieking gleefully.  But when Yuuri looked longingly at the goldfish pool, where even now a girl was dipping her net into the water to try to catch a fish, his father put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't get distracted, Yuuri.  Remember what we talked about."

 _I'm wearing a blue haori with golden cranes_ , Yuuri told himself, and he nodded obediently.  Then he leaned over to Yuuko.  "Remember, we're supposed to think about what we're wearing," he whispered.

Yuuko nodded, her face set in a serious expression.  "I'm wearing a red kimono with butterflies and a gold obi," she mumbled beneath her breath, her eyes screwing shut.  "I'm wearing a red kimono with butterflies and a gold obi."

 _I'm wearing a blue haori with golden cranes_ , Yuuri repeated in his mind.  He glanced around, just a quick once-over at everyone in the vicinity, but there was nothing.  Nothing but his own mental voice repeating, _I'm wearing a blue haori with golden cranes_.

Instead of going to eat yakisoba or try to catch a goldfish, Yuuri and Yuuko got herded toward the altar, where a line of parents and children waited to make their offerings and pray.  "Remember what I told you," Yuuri's mother whispered to him.

"Say thank you to the gods," Yuuri parroted dutifully.

"And?"

"Pray for health and happiness and ask for my soulmate to find me today."

"And?"

He huffed.  "I'm wearing a blue haori with golden cranes.  Daddy already told me."

"Good," Yuuri's mother said, and she patted his head.

When at last they made it to the altar, Yuuri's father plunked a five-yen coin into his palm, and he tossed it into the collection box, bowed, clapped his hands, and closed his eyes.  _Thank you_ , he thought, then realized he didn't know what he was supposed to be thanking the gods _for_.  He frowned, pondering.  _Thank you for my family,_ he thought at last, then nodded to himself a bit, satisfied.  _Please give me health and happiness and let my soulmate find me today.  I'm wearing a blue haori with golden cranes._

He bowed again, and then he opened his eyes and trotted over to where Mari and his parents were waiting.  Yuuko and her parents were still praying, so Yuuri looked around.  There were a lot of kids here, not just three and five and seven but all ages, siblings and relatives and friends who came along to the festivities.  Yuuri studied them one by one, as many of them as he could, noting their outfits.  _Pink kimono with chrysanthemums.  Blue kimono with black hakama.  Green kimono with river scenery.  Black kimono with a silver-striped haori._

It was tradition, after all.

Yuuko was just bowing at the altar, her prayers finished, when a voice shouted, cracking through the buzz of conversation.  "Ah!"  And then, almost as an afterthought, "Red kimono with butterflies and a gold obi!"

Yuuko froze, her eyes wide, and then she slowly turned around.  Some ten meters away, a boy stood pointing at her, his hair tousled and his mouth hanging open.  He was wearing a forest green kimono with a black haori, and he stared at Yuuko like he had just seen the moon for the first time.

Yuuko's father crouched down.  "Think your name," he whispered, so quietly that Yuuri could barely hear it quiver.  "Don't say it aloud.  Silently."

Yuuko blinked, her hands clapped over her mouth, and nodded.  She said nothing.

" _Yuuko_!" the boy shouted.  "I can hear you!  Your name is Yuuko!"

Yuuko's mother burst into tears.

Instantly, the entire shrine was in an uproar.  The boy ran up to Yuuko, and his parents and hers bowed endlessly to each other as they babbled their way through introductions, and all around them complete strangers shouted their congratulations and cheered and turned to their neighbors to gasp and ooh and ahh, _I can't believe it, how lucky they are, it must be fate, how beautiful, how incredible, I've never seen soulmates find each other before_ \--

And off to the side, utterly forgotten, Yuuri stood in silence, his eyes wide and his mind completely blank.  He was supposed to be doing something.  He'd come here for a reason.  But he couldn't remember, couldn't think, couldn't even breathe.  The shrine had no room for anyone but Yuuko and the boy who'd found her, and if anyone was here for Yuuri, well, no one was looking at him now.

Amidst the sudden celebratory cacophony, Mari patted his head, wearing an expression full of pity.  "Better luck next time, kid."

* * *

The moment that Nishigoori Takeshi found Yuuko would remain seared into Yuuri's memory.  He remembered it at his next--his final--Shichi-go-san two years later, when he bowed his head and furrowed his brow and thought, single-mindedly and unceasingly, _I'm wearing a green haori with a dragon_ , silently willing someone to catch sight of him and hear his voice.  He remembered it at each subsequent Shichi-go-san, when children younger than him would go pray for health, happiness, and the luck to be spotted by their soulmates, and he would stare at them, hearing nothing.  He would remember it every time Nishigoori teased him, because the teasing would only stop when Yuuko came into earshot, whereupon Nishigoori would go quiet, his expression turning guilty as Yuuko made her disapproval known.

Yuuri remembered it.  He remembered.  He could not stop remembering.

* * *

It wasn't that Yuuri was obsessed with finding his soulmate.  It wasn't that his parents were, either.  After all, it was almost impossible to find your soulmate nowadays.  It hadn't always been this way.  Soulmates had never gone farther than the reach of humanity; they had never existed so far apart that one could not find the other.  Centuries ago, it had been easy enough to find your soulmate that ceremonies like Shichi-go-san had actually worked with some regularity.  Shichi-go-san, after all, was was a rite of passage that originated in the Heian Period, when the world was much smaller and Japanese people stayed in Japan, and soulmates had never gone so far that they had no hope of finding each other.  But the world had expanded in the centuries since then, trade and war and technology connecting distant lands, and as the scope of humanity's reach had broadened, so too had the scope of soulmates.  And with the advent of photography, every restriction on soulmates had fallen away.  After all, when a single photograph could be brought to every corner of the globe, wasn't it possible to find your soulmate no matter where they might be?

Yuuri's parents weren't soulmates.  Neither were Yuuko's, nor Nishigoori's, nor anyone else he knew.  Shichi-go-san had become a tradition detached from its original purpose; no one really expected to find their soulmates that way, and they hadn't since at least the Meiji Period.  But Yuuko _had_ been found that way, and suddenly, Yuuri wondered:  _Why?_

He was ten, or maybe eleven, when his curiosity finally broke free.  "Yuu-chan," he said, "what is it like?"

"Hmm?" Yuuko said, but Yuuri didn't look to see what expression she was wearing; they were coming off the ice at the end of practice, and he was busy picking at the laces of his skates, the perfect excuse to avoid looking.  "What is what like?"

Yuuri yanked at his laces until the tight knot finally came free.  He got to work on his other skate.  "Having a soulmate," he mumbled.

For a long moment, Yuuko said nothing.  Yuuri hazarded a glance up; Yuuko was staring at her skates, her eyebrows knitted together and her lips pursed in thought.  "Honestly, it's not very different," she said at last, her voice quiet.  "After all, Takeshi is the one who found me.  He can hear me, but I can't hear him.  Nothing's different, for me.  So I don't know what it's like."

"I wonder why soulmates are made that way," Yuuri said.  "Wouldn't it make more sense if you could both hear each other?"

"I wish I could hear him, sometimes," Yuuko admitted.  She plucked at her knotted laces, but her gaze was distant.  "I know he's my soulmate.  He can prove it whenever he wants, just by telling me what I'm thinking.  But sometimes I wish I'd been the one to find him.  After all, he can always hear me, but the only thing I can hear from him is whatever he decides to say aloud, just like anyone else."  Her hands trembled on the laces.  "I know I'm lucky to have a soulmate, but it gets lonely, sometimes.  I don't think anyone understands how lonely."

Yuuri stared down at his own skates, the laces loosened and dangling limply.  _Lonely_ , he thought.

He wondered if he would be lonely for the rest of his life.

* * *

When Yuuri was twelve, Yuuko came into practice one day practically dancing.  "Yuuri-kun!" she exclaimed, dropping her skate bag on the bench and bounding over to him.  "There's something you _need_ to see."

He looked at her quizzically.  "What?" he asked.

Yuuko grinned at him, tapping the side of her nose.  "You'll find out after practice," she said, tossing him a wink.  " _If_ you can land that double loop."

Yuuri pouted, but Yuuko just laughed and tugged her skates out of her bag.  "Hurry up, " she said, almost taunting him, "or I'll take your space on the ice!"

No one had a specially reserved space on the ice, especially not Yuuri, but the goading worked as intended:  Yuuri scrambled to finish lacing up his skates, tying the knots as tightly as he could.  He paused at the gate for only a moment to shuck off his blade guards, and then he was off, legs pumping to send him gliding smoothly over the ice.

Today he was practicing with Yamada-san, a woman whose skating career had peaked with a bronze medal finish at the Japan Junior Figure Skating Championships.  Now significantly past her prime, she taught young skaters to do Lutzes and loops, her explanations calm and patient.

 _Something I need to see_ , Yuuri thought as Yamada-san sent him around the ice to warm up.  _What did Yuu-chan mean, something I need to see?_

He scanned the ice until he spotted her off to the side.  She stood still next to her coach Chouno-san, frowning and tapping her toe pick into the ice as she listened to him explain something.  She twisted her torso a few times, arms tight over her chest as though in the middle of a jump, and then she nodded and set off.

Yuuri made several loops of the rink, adroitly skirting other skaters.  He'd already done his off-ice warmups, of course, so his on-ice warmups were quick--a few laps, forward and back, steps that use both edges on both skates.  Then he started on his jumps.  He did them in order of point value according to the new scoring system--toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip, Lutz, and then, much to his own swelling sense of pride, a solid single Axel.  Then he tried a wobbly double toe loop and landed it, too. 

He skated back to Yamada-san, who had been watching him with a critical eye.  "Good Axel, Katsuki-kun," she said.  She always sounded vaguely surprised when she complimented his Axel, as though she still couldn't believe he'd gotten the hang of it so quickly.  "Now why don't we get to work on that double loop of yours?"

There were off-ice ways to practice a jump--and off the ice, Yuuri had long since learned, was how you started learning a new jump in the first place--but ultimately, the only way to really learn how to perform a jump was to do it on the ice, no harness, no help, no nothing.  That meant that sooner or later, you'd find yourself on your skates, throwing yourself into the new jump and knowing you'd probably end up hitting the ice.  Yuuri nodded, shook out his arms, and pushed off.  He picked up speed, targeted his open stretch of ice, turned backwards on a 3 turn, glided, took a deep breath, bent his knees, and pushed off.

He fell on the first jump.  "Bend your knees more, Katsuki-kun!" Yamada-san shouted as he skated by.  He tumbled a bit less extravagantly on the second jump.  The third he popped.  The fourth he managed to stay on his feet, but only because he had to put a hand down, and quite heavily at that.  The fifth was another fall.

On the sixth try, he landed hard on the outside edge of his skate, his arms pinwheeling gracelessly, and then he somehow, miraculously, regained his balance.

"Yuuri-kun!"  Yuuko's voice echoed from the other side of the ice.

Beaming, Yuuri skated back to Yamada-san.  She raised her eyebrows at him, her expression torn between grudgingly impressed and flat dissatisfaction.  "Good," she said.  "You landed it.  Now land it again."

Yuuri didn't actually spend the remainder of his lesson with Yamada-san working on his double loop, but it sure felt that way.  By the time his hour was up, he was drenched in sweat and feeling more than a bit bruised and battered by a multitude of up-close-and-personal meetings with the surface of the ice.  But he'd landed the double loop three more times, and the last had full rotation and almost no wobbling, and when Yuuri skated off the ice, his chest was practically swelling with pride.

Yuuko had come off the ice already and was sitting on the bench, her skates untied but still on her feet.  Nishigoori was there, too, firmly bundled up against the rink's chill.  Yuuko's cheeks were red and her hair wild, but when she saw Yuuri, she grinned up at him.  "I saw that double loop," she said, giving him a thumbs up.

"The landing could be cleaner," Nishigoori added, and received an elbow in the side from Yuuko for his troubles.

"I'm working on it," Yuuri grumbled.  He plopped down onto the bench next to Yuuko and got to work on his skates.  "So, what do I get to see?"

Yuuko's grin turned mischievous.  "It's on TV," she said.  "Hurry up and take your skates off, and we can watch!"

Ice Castle Hasetsu had a TV in the lobby, presumably for the parents who had to wait while their children had skating lessons.  As soon as Yuuri and Yuuko had swapped their skates for shoes, they bounded over, and Yuuko changed the channel from NHK like she owned the place.  She jabbed the channel button on the TV furiously, the image on the screen flickering rapidly, and then she stopped.  "Victor Nikiforov from Russia," she said, and she stepped away from the TV, giving Yuuri a clear view.

Skating across the screen, lithe and long and elegant, was the most beautiful boy Yuuri had ever seen.  His costume was stark and gorgeous, the pitch black a striking contrast to his pale skin, with a suggestion of a skirt off one hip and adorned with silver crystals like diamonds.  His hair, sleek platinum, trailed out in a tail behind him as he spun and leapt.  He danced over the ice like he owned it, like he _was_ it, his body floating, each gesture sweeping and expansive, his eyes glittering and his skates slicing through the air.

Yuuko was saying something, "he won gold with the highest score _ever_ ," but her words were nothing but static.  Yuuri stared at the screen, his eyes wide and his breath catching in his throat.  The Russian boy was beautiful, yes, and his skating even more so, but that wasn't what had caught Yuuri's attention.  More overwhelming than Yuuko's excitement or Nishigoori's thinly veiled interest, more than the beauty or the talent of this Victor Nikiforov, more than _anything_ , Yuuri was swept up in a flood of emotion crystallized into a single thought that spoke like a voice in his mind, clear and pure as the peal of a bell.

 _I won_.

As Yuuri stared at the image of Victor Nikiforov on the screen, the bottom dropped out of his stomach and his heart leapt into his throat.  Because Victor Nikiforov was incredible, and his skating was jaw-dropping and his gold medal score historical and the sheer glory in his eyes riveting, but that all fell away, because Yuuri's mind was swamped by an onslaught of pride and excitement and determination and sheer elation and a ringing repetition of _I won, I won, I did it, I won_ , and Yuuri knew, with bone-deep, heart-wrenching certainty, that none of it was his.

Yuuri swallowed.   _I found you_ , he thought, scarcely able to comprehend the enormity of it.   _I found you._

 _I won_ , Victor Nikiforov's voice echoed in his mind, solitary and triumphant.  _I won._

* * *

Yuuri could barely focus for the entire rest of the day.

Hearing his soulmate wasn't like what he'd half expected it to be.  He could sense Victor's thoughts and emotions, yes, but they were distinct from his own, separated by a bright dividing line.  Yuuri never felt their minds were merging, never mistook Victor's thoughts for his own, not even for a moment.  But the knowledge that he could _hear Victor_ was, on its own, staggering.

 _I won_ , Victor thought, and Yuuri could feel his excitement.  _I won_ , Victor thought, and Yuuri could sense his pride.  _I won_ , Victor thought, and Yuuri could almost taste his glee.

Really, it was no wonder that Yuuri could do nothing but stare at the screen, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as Victor skated and jumped and spun, as Victor accepted his gold medal with a smile and a wave, as Victor gave an interview in accented English that came with Japanese subtitles.  Even after the half-hour report concluded, Yuuri could only sit there, watching the report segue into a preview of next week's Seniors Championships, his mind full of Victor.

Yuuko giggled.  "Isn't he amazing?" she said, a question with only one possible answer.

Yuuri swallowed.  His mouth was dry.  He nodded, too dazed to say anything.

The World Junior Figure Skating Championships had taken place in Sofia, Bulgaria.  It was still morning there--the morning after the medals had been awarded--and the excitement of winning the World Juniors had clearly not yet faded for Victor.  _I won_ , he thought as he brushed his teeth.  _I won_ , he thought as he packed his skate bag.  _I won_ , he thought as he stepped into the arena for his exhibition skate.

 _I won_ , he thought, and Yuuri could only think in response, _You won, you won, you won._

"I'm going to skate like Victor," Yuuri blurted.

Both Yuuko and Nishigoori turned his way, wearing identical expressions of bafflement.  "Like Victor?" Nishigoori asked.

"Competitively?" Yuuko asked.

Yuuri nodded fervently.  "And not just the competitions in Kyushu," he said.  "I'm going to be a national-level skater.  I'm going to represent Japan.  I'm going to go to the Grand Prix Finals, and Worlds, and the Olympics."  His eyes were still fixed on the TV screen, but even though it showed an ice dancing pair, all he saw was Victor.  "I'm going to meet him on the ice," he said.

Yuuko and Nishigoori looked at each other.  "I know," Nishigoori said after a moment; he must have been responding to one of Yuuko's thoughts.  He glanced Yuuri's way.  "You'll need to work hard," he said dubiously.

"It won't happen overnight," Yuuko added.  "Victor's probably jumping to Seniors next year.  So even if you made the Juniors circuit next year, he--"

"I know," Yuuri said.  He clenched his jaw.  "I don't care how long it takes.  I'll get there."

 _I'll get to the same ice as him,_ he thought.  _And then, when I do, I can tell him._

Yuuko and Nishigoori looked at each other again, Nishigoori's brow furrowing, Yuuko biting her lip.  But Yuuri paid them no mind, because in his head, Victor's voice said, _I won._

And then, _I wonder if I can do it again._

The very idea was so exhilarating, for Victor and for Yuuri by association, that Yuuri didn't notice when his mother showed up.  "Come on, Yuuri," she said, "we need to get home."

"Okay," Yuuri said faintly, his mind only half present.

He trailed after his mother to the car, bundled in, and stared out the window.  His mother started the car and pulled out of the lot.  "So," she said, "Yuuko-chan told me that you saw a skater you really liked."

Yuuri blinked, his mouth opening and closing.  _It's not a matter of liking him_ , some part of his mind said.  _It's not about his skating.  It's not about his gold medal.  It's about the fact that I can_ ** _hear_** _him._

He could have said that.  Maybe he _should_ have.  But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to tell her.  He didn't know why, but he couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud.  _She might not believe me_ , part of his mind whispered.  _Maybe I'm just imagining it_ , another part said.  _Maybe I'll never get good enough._

And somewhere deep down in the back of his mind, a tiny, tiny voice whispered, a piteous whine, _Victor's mine_.

"He's amazing," Yuuri said.  "I've never seen anyone skate like him.  I want to skate like him."  He turned and looked at his mother.  "I want to skate."

His mother kept her eyes on the road ahead.  "Well," she said at last, "it won't be easy."

"I'll do it," Yuuri insisted.  "I'll do it."

_I'll do anything it takes to hear him think my name._

* * *

Three weeks later, Yuuri went to the bookstore and bought the newest issue of World Figure Skate.  On the cover was a photograph of Asada Mao, proudly holding her gold Juniors medal in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.  Yuuri ignored the cover entirely and flipped through the pages, skipping over the entire first half of the magazine to get to the coverage of the World Junior Championships.  The first page of that was Asada, too, followed by several more pages of pictures of her, articles about her performances, an interview.  Another few pages covered the remaining ladies' skaters.  And then--

 _The Future of Skating_ , blared bold words over a photograph of Victor Nikiforov.

Yuuri stared at the photo.  It was Victor standing at center ice immediately after his free skate.  He was surrounded by flowers and stuffed animals, his arm raised in a wave to the crowd, his eyes gleaming and his smile brilliant.

Victor right now was not the elegant, incredible skater in the photo being hailed as the future of figure skating.  Victor right now was sulking.  _I want chocolate_ , Victor thought petulantly.  He was currently eating fruit, avoiding processed sugars and sticking to his nutrition plan like a professional athlete should.  _For once, I want something horribly unhealthy._

Yuuri smiled a little to himself.  He closed his eyes, drinking up the feeling of Victor's mind.  He knew Victor couldn't hear him, _knew_ their connection was a one-way street, but still he sent out encouraging thoughts:  _You're doing well.  Stay healthy.  It will help your skating._

_I'll come to you, someday._

He opened his eyes and flipped the page.  He read the entire article about Victor's gold-medal short and free skates, sighing over each gushing description of an impeccable jump or a beautiful spin, painting a mental image the sweep of Victor's arms, the ripple of his hair, the slice of his blades on ice.  Then he read the interview with Victor, which was painfully earnest ("I know my current skill level won't be enough in Seniors competition, so I need to work on everything--my quads, my execution, my choreography, everything!").  And then he grabbed a pair of scissors and carefully, so carefully, cut out each and every picture of Victor.  He taped them to the walls of his bedroom, spacing them out so that whichever way he looked, there was an image of Victor--Victor showing off his gold medal, Victor waving to the crowd, Victor with his arms outstretched in a gorgeous Ina Bauer.  Victor.

* * *

Yuuri dove into his English classes like a starving man devoured a feast.

Victor was good at English.  Not native-level, according to his own assessment, but good.  He had to be; English was the lingua franca of athletics, and any world-class skater had to have at least a passing familiarity with the language.  Skaters had to communicate with each other, answer questions at interviews, understand announcements, interact with event and arena staff, work with the best coach regardless of citizenship or mother tongue.  And so Victor treated English like he treated any other aspect of his training regimen:  He practiced it with single-minded intensity.

If Yuuri was going to be a competitive figure skater, he needed to be good at English, too.  More importantly, English would be vital for communication with Victor, when the day came that they skated on the same ice.  There weren't any Russian language schools in Hasetsu--Yuuri's parents had checked, after suffering much begging and pleading--and that meant that Yuuri's only option was English.

Fortunately, Yuuri didn't need English to understand Victor.  Thoughts and feelings were vague, nebulous things, and they rarely took the shape of language.  At least, Victor rarely thought in explicit words; there was an occasional string of what Yuuri could only guess to be Russian, but usually Victor's thoughts consisted of images and sensations and concepts, understandable on a level deeper than linguistics.  But while that was good enough for now, it wouldn't be enough when they finally met.  If Yuuri couldn't have Russian, then he would at least need English, and he would need to be good, good enough to say everything he wanted to say.  Good enough that he could put any thought, any idea, into words.

Good enough that he could prove that he could hear Victor.  Good enough to prove that he was Victor's soulmate.

* * *

Neither Yuuri nor Yuuko could do justice to Victor's routines, but that didn't stop them from trying.

They both learned his skate to _The Lilac Fairy_ , his gold medal short program.  They got their hands on as many versions of his performance as they could, World Juniors and the Junior Grand Prix and a single grainy, jerky practice video that lasted all of twenty seconds, and they played and replayed them endlessly, comparing the angle of Victor's arms and the bend of his legs.  They downgraded his jumps, counted the rotations on his spins, and mapped out his choreography, and then they learned it.  "Victor does it like this," they said, skating side by side, as they leapt and spun and twirled across the ice.

"No, look, see, he changes to the outer edge _here_ , it's a bracket turn into the lunge," Yuuri said, and he went through that segment of Victor's step sequence, the step and the turn and the shift to the outer edge.

Yuuko frowned and tried to mimic it herself, but her footwork was sloppy, her blades scraping crudely on the ice.  She was a good skater, very good, even, but she didn't quite have the knack for step sequences that Yuuri did.  "Show me again," she said, frustration sharpening her voice.

Yuuri took a breath.  He played the notes of _The Lilac Fairy_ in his mind, and then he pushed off, arms outspread, and skated.  Bracket turn, forward inside edge to back outside edge, and then transition into a deep lunge, one leg trailing out behind him, one arm stretching out ahead of him.

Yuuko sighed, but it was a sound of admiration, not frustration.  "Your footwork is so gorgeous, Yuuri-kun," she called out.

Yuuri pulled out of the lunge, his cheeks heating up.  "I need to work on it," he protested.  "I'm nowhere near Victor's level."

"You are with your step sequences," Yuuko said.  "And for everything else... you'll get there."  Her voice was utterly confident, as though she hadn't a single doubt that Yuuri would one day skate on the same level.  "I can't wait to see you on the same ice as Victor."

Yuuri smiled, a bit tentatively.  It was true that step sequences were his strong suit, but it was only natural.  He couldn't land all of Victor's jumps, couldn't come even close.  Not yet.  But if he couldn't match Victor's jumps, he could at least learn from Victor's step sequences.

He practiced on the ice with Yuuko, and in the studio with Minako-sensei, and in the privacy of his own bedroom late at night.  On the ice, he practiced skating his edges, inside and outside and inside again, and he drilled himself in his steps and turns, and he honed dramatic Ina Bauers and hydroblades and spread eagles.  Off the ice, he practiced emotionality, controlling his facial expressions and his gestures, the sweep of his arms and the tilt of his head.

He practiced and practiced and practiced until he could skate the step sequences of _The Lilac Fairy_ as beautifully as Victor himself.  It was only unfortunate that Victor wasn't skating that routine anymore.  If he had, then Yuuri could hear him, could pick his brain and pull out the intent, the feeling, the _meaning_ behind every step, every turn, every slightest motion.  But Victor had moved on, and Yuuri could only struggle to catch up.

* * *

Victor thought about soulmates.  A lot.

Once, barely days after Yuuri had first seen Victor on TV, it occurred to him that he could just _tell Victor_.  Victor's contact information was hardly public knowledge, but he had a coach, an agent, a home rink; it had to be possible to send an email or a letter to one of them through official channels.  Yuuri could contact them, say that he'd seen Victor on TV and could now hear him, and they could tell Victor.  Yuuri could prove it, too, if Victor wanted proof.  They could set up a date and time and have Victor think something specific, something that only Victor's soulmate could possibly guess, and Yuuri would tell him what he was thinking.  And then--well, Yuuri didn't know what would happen after that, but at least then Victor would know, and they could communicate, and maybe Yuuri could visit him, and--

Yuuri had thought about it, had even gone online to see if he could locate contact information for anyone who worked with Victor.  But then Victor had a conversation with another skater at his rink, and while Yuuri couldn't hear the exact content of the conversation, he could hear all of Victor's background thoughts, and that meant he heard Victor think, _You can't just believe it when someone says they're you're soulmate.  Just last week I had a_ _nother person saying they could hear me, and they were lying, too._

Yuuri's first reaction was complete and utter bafflement, because _he_ was Victor's soulmate and there was no way Victor could know about him.  His second reaction was a tsunami of blind outrage.  _Another_ person saying they were Victor's soulmate.  That meant someone was _lying_ , and more than that, it had _happened before_ , and how _dare_ these people try to deceive Victor, to steal him, to snatch him up as their own--

The bones in Yuuri's hands creaked, and he realized that his hands had clenched into quivering fists.  He inhaled, closed his eyes, exhaled, uncurled his fingers.

Victor, of course, had no idea that Yuuri was hearing any of this.  _I understand hoping_ , Victor thought.  _It's hard, not to hope.  But whoever it is, they're probably lying._

There was a strange melancholic tint to Victor's thoughts--not tragic, not mournful, just... resigned.  As though it were unfortunate, but only to be expected.  Victor was used to people claiming to be his soulmate.  Victor was used to people lying.

 _I wonder if my soulmate will ever find me_ , Victor thought.

Yuuri swallowed.  _I've found you,_ he thought, even though Victor couldn't hear him.  _I've found you.  I'll come to you, someday._

But if Yuuri sent a message to Victor claiming to be his soulmate, would he be believed?  No.  Of course not.  They would think he was just one more person emerging from the woodwork to chase after an up-and-coming star, someone willing to lie and deceive and betraying their own soulmate if it meant seizing some shred of secondhand glory.  The only way to prove himself was to go to Victor directly, to look him in the eye and speak Victor's own thoughts aloud.  Then Victor would know, and he would never have to feel resigned again.

But until that day came, Yuuri had to listen to Victor's thoughts and feel Victor's emotions.  And Victor thought about soulmates a lot.  Too much, perhaps.

_Should I have the messages forwarded to me whenever someone says they're my soulmate?  Maybe one of them is telling the truth._

_They're probably all lying._

_I wonder if my soulmate likes figure skating.  I wonder if my soulmate has seen me skate._

_Maybe I'll find my soulmate instead.  I wonder what it's like to hear someone else's thoughts._

_I wonder if my soulmate is out there, somewhere.  I wonder if they're even alive._

_...Hello?  Can you hear me?_

* * *

If there was one advantage to constantly being inside Victor Nikiforov's head, it was that the man was a figure skating genius.

Whether he was focusing on the current Grand Prix Final gold medalist, an up-and-coming Juniors skater, or himself, Victor studied skating with a keen, critical eye.  He calculated takeoff angles and jump height, compared Biellmanns by the dozens to pinpoint the perfect teardrop shape, watched hundreds upon hundreds of jumps to see the most efficient leg position and most balanced weight distributions.  He held a near-encyclopedic knowledge inside that skull of his, and Yuuri had access to practically all of it.

It didn't matter if Yuuri was in school, on the ice, or at home; the moment Victor began assessing and analyzing, Yuuri shut down everything else and focused on Victor's mind, comparing the analysis to the accompanying mental image.  He began having Yuuko video record him at practice so that he could compare what he'd learned from Victor with his own performance.  _I'm not getting a good grade of execution on the top loop because_ _I'm pre-rotating it_ , Yuuri realized.  _A good Lutz deepens the outside edge.  I need to lean in a bit more on a hydroblade to keep my balance._

Victor sometimes targeted something specific--a particular jump, a certain spin, even a single movement.  When he did, Yuuri found it difficult to focus on anything else.  Teachers grew frustrated at his lack of attention in class.  Coaches scolded him and told him to focus.  "It's like your mind is half a world away," Minako said once, not realizing just how accurate she was.

When Yuuri moved to Detroit to work with a new coach, he took a different approach.  "Celestino," he said, "sometimes I like to focus on one specific thing.  I'll drop everything else to focus on it.  Is that okay?  Is that something you can work with?"

Celestino blinked, visibly surprised.  "I'm your coach, Yuuri, not your boss," he replied.  "I'll tell you if I think it's interfering with what you should be practicing, but I'm not going to dictate every little thing you do."

So if Victor spent a month improving his triple Axel, so did Yuuri.  If Victor began practicing a triple flip with both arms overhead, so did Yuuri.  If Victor reshuffled his step sequence, so did Yuuri.

 _I hear you_ , Yuuri's skating said.  _I hear you, I hear you, so please, just see me--_

* * *

When Yuuri turned twenty years old, Phichit decided to celebrate with alcohol.  "The age of majority is twenty in Japan, right?" he said, waving a can of beer in Yuuri's direction.

"We're in America," Yuuri reminded him.  "I still can't drink."

"You can't drink _legally_ ," Phichit said, wagging his eyebrows outrageously.  "Tell the truth, now.  If you were in Japan for your twentieth birthday, what would you be doing?"

"Not drinking," Yuuri said, although he honestly wasn't sure.  "We have practice tomorrow."

"Come on," Phichit said, wheedling, "one isn't going to hurt you."

So they each had a beer, which turned into two, and then three.  "Seriously, though," Phichit said, his face a bit red but his eyes mostly clear, "what would you be doing for your twentieth birthday?  Do you have a thing you do in Japan?"

"Well, it isn't something you do on your birthday," Yuuri said.  "But we do have a coming-of-age ceremony.  Everyone goes to the local ward office, and then you have a party afterwards."

"The ward office?"

"It's a government office," Yuuri explained.  "It's where you go to change your address and get your health insurance, stuff like that."

"And you have a _ceremony_ there?"  Phichit's voice turned skeptical.  "Sounds boring."

"It is pretty boring," Yuuri admitted.  "I went to my sister's.  I suppose some people like to dress up, but other than that, there's nothing too exciting about the ceremony itself.  It's not like people actually find their soulmates there anymore."

Phichit blinked owlishly, then stared at his beer can.  "Maybe I'm just drunker than I thought," he said, "but I completely did not understand how you got from Point A to Point B."

Yuuri sighed.  "It was originally about finding your soulmate," he explained.  "The coming-of-age ceremony.  It used to be about dressing up in formal clothing and parading around so that your soulmate could find you.  They have a ceremony like that for little kids, too.  The idea is that if everyone gathers in one place, you're more likely to find your soulmate, but if you just see a crowd of people, you might find your soulmate but not know which person it is, right?  So you all wear really fancy, unique clothes, and when you go, you just think a lot about what you're wearing.  That way, if your soulmate finds you, they'll hear you thinking, 'I'm wearing a blue kimono with pink butterflies,' and they can find you by what you're wearing."  Yuuri sighed.  "Well, it's just tradition now.  Almost no one finds their soulmate that way anymore, so now it's mostly just about celebrating reaching the age of majority.  Wear fancy clothes, have a party, get drunk."

Phichit gazed at Yuuri with stars in his eyes.  "A ceremony to find soulmates!" he said dreamily.  Then his expression darkened.  "And you're _skipping_ it?  Yuuri!"

Yuuri fiddled with his empty beer can.  "It doesn't matter," he mumbled.  "Like I said, no one finds their soulmates like that anymore.  Not when your soulmate probably isn't even in Japan."

"Maybe," Phichit grudgingly acknowledged, though his brow was still furrowed in disapproval.  "Well, I suppose it's a lot more likely for someone to find you by seeing you skate, anyway.  After all, a lot more people will see you on TV than would show up to your ceremony, right?"

Yuuri closed his eyes.  His head spun.  In the back of his mind, Victor's thoughts were quiet, hazy and indistinct with sleep.  It was an ungodly hour of the morning in St. Petersburg right now, and Victor wouldn't be waking up for another couple of hours.

"Yuuri?" Phichit asked, his voice uncertain.

"Nothing," Yuuri said, and downed the rest of his beer.

* * *

Victor practiced with a single-minded intensity that bled into Yuuri's thoughts, and the only thing Yuuri could do was skate along with him.  Everyone noticed.

"Yuuri," Celestino said at last, "can I talk with you?"

Anxiety stabbed deep in his gut.  "Of course, Coach," Yuuri said, nervously tapping his toe pick on the ice.

"Come off the ice for a bit," Celestino said, holding out Yuuri's skate guards, and suddenly numb, Yuuri took them, slid them on over the blades of his skates, and let Celestino sit him down on a bench.

"Yuuri," Celestino said, then paused.  "You're a good skater," he said.  "A very good skater."

"Thank you," Yuuri said reflexively.

"Victor Nikiforov is your inspiration, isn't he?" Celestino asked.

Yuuri nodded.

Celestino slowly exhaled.  "I can tell," he said.  "I can see it in the way you skate.  You skate like you're trying to be Victor Nikiforov."

Yuuri blinked, uncomprehending.  "Everyone wants to be Victor Nikiforov," he said blankly.  "He's the best figure skater alive."

"You can't be Victor Nikiforov," Celestino said.  "There's only one of him, and no one else can be him.  You can skate like him for the rest of your life, but you'll never become him."

Yuuri stared at him.

Celestino sighed.  "What I'm saying is, you need to stop skating like him.  You need to skate like yourself, Yuuri.  The only person who can reach Victor Nikiforov's level by being Victor Nikiforov is Victor Nikiforov.  There's only room for one of him on the world stage.  If you want to reach his level, you'll have to do it as yourself.  You need to find your own way of skating.  Skating like him has given you skill, but now you need to make it your own."

Yuuri kept staring at him, speechless.  "I," he said, floundered, stuttered.  He rubbed his face.  "I don't know what that means," he admitted.

Yuuri's skating was because of Victor.  It had been from the moment he'd seen a teenage Victor win Junior gold, from the moment he'd first felt Victor's mind against his own.  Victor was the only reason Yuuri had been able to come this far, the only reason Yuuri could skate the way he could.

Celestino nodded.  "We'll try something new," he said.  "For this season.  We'll choreograph you something different.  We'll find a way to skate that's yours."

Yuuri stared at the floor, his mind racing.  Thousands of miles away, Victor was puzzling over his own choreography for his newest free skate, rearranging different elements as he played through the music over and over in his mind.  _I need to surprise them_ , Victor thought, pondering a death drop into a sit spin.  _Something different, something new, something they've never seen before._

It was a train of thought that Yuuri had grown quite used to.  Victor's thoughts had always been dominated by skating, but the more time passed, the more monotone those thoughts became.  His mind became _gray_ , somehow, sleet-gray and chilly.  He thought about skating, and his dog, and... very little else.  Gray.

 _It's eating him alive_ , Yuuri suddenly realized, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach, because Victor was so fixated on skating, on surprising everyone, on being _t_ _he_ Victor Nikiforov, that there was almost no room left for anything else.

 _When was the last time he thought about soulmates?_ Yuuri wondered, and realized that he didn't know.

Yuuri closed his eyes.  _I'll surprise you_ , he thought, _I'll show you something new, something you've never seen before._ He looked up at Celestino.  "Okay," he said, and nodded.

* * *

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Once Yuri Plisetsky had said his piece and gone stomping out of the bathroom, Yuuri ducked his head and gripped the sink until his hands stopped shaking. When he finally calmed down enough that he could tolerate his own reflection in the mirror, he splashed his face with water and waited for his red eyes and red cheeks to go to back to normal, and then he dragged his sorry self out of the bathroom.

Celestino was waiting for him.  When he saw Yuuri, he offered up an awkward smile.  "Come on, Yuuri," he said, his voice gentle.  "Let's head on back."

Yuuri packed up his skate bag, pulled the lanyard with his arena pass on over his head, and dredged up a tremulous smile.  "Let's go," he agreed.

He followed Celestino through the arena, his head bowed and his mind a blur.  _Vicchan_ , he thought bleakly, and then, _I screwed up_.  His spirit was leaden.  His legs were made of concrete.  His feet slowed, then stopped.

Celestino noticed.  "Yuuri," he said.

"Katsuki-kun!" another voice hollered.

Yuuri turned to see Morooka, an announcer and commentator who had interviewed Yuuri several times before.  "Morooka-san," Yuuri said politely.

"You aren't retiring, are you?" Morooka asked, nearly breathless.  "Please say you aren't retiring!"

 _Retiring_ , Yuuri mused, but he couldn't think about this now.  He was too tired, too worn-down and weary, to think about anything at all.  He gave a vague answer, the type that was half reassuring platitude and half avoidance of the question.  _Retire?_ Maybe he should retire.  But if he retired--

"Yuuri," that voice said, and Yuuri froze, his eyes widening.

He knew that voice.  For over a decade, he'd heard that voice near-constantly in his mind.  He knew that voice.  He knew it as well as he knew his own name.

Yuuri turned around, and there was Victor Nikiforov, striding his way.

Yuuri's mouth went dry.  _Victor_ , he thought, his stomach flipping and his heart squeezing.  But it was for a moment, only a moment, and then whatever expectations or hopes he'd had all vanished.

 _Yuri needs to focus_ , Victor's mind said.  _If he's satisfied with what he's accomplished, this Juniors gold will be the greatest success he ever sees--_

And Yuuri didn't need to hear more, because the focus of Victor's attention was crystal clear in his mind, and beside him walked Yuri Plisetsky, his hands shoved in his pockets and his face fixed in a scowl.

Not Yuuri.  Victor wasn't talking to him.  Victor was talking to Yuri Plisetsky, and he hadn't even noticed that Yuuri was there--

And then Victor turned, and their eyes met.

Yuuri stared at him, his heart beating in double time.  _Victor_ , he thought.  _Victor_.  He had to say something.  Anything.  _I can hear you_.  _You're my soulmate._   Anything.  But Victor's mind was a complete blank, and Yuuri had just humiliated himself on the ice that Victor had reigned over, and--

Victor's face broke into a wide, friendly smile.  "Do you want a commemorative photo?" he asked.

 _And then I'll go back to the hotel,_ Victor thought, _and call the dog sitter to check on Makkachin.  Check my costume for my exhibition skate tomorrow.  Put my medal in the hotel safe.  Get something to eat, take a shower, go to bed._

Nothing about Yuuri.  Not the slightest shred of recognition.  There was not a single thought in Victor's head about Yuuri, even as he offered Yuuri a smile and a selfie together.

Yuuri never expected Victor to realize that Yuuri was his soulmate.  There was no way Victor could have known that; he couldn't hear Yuuri's thoughts and had no idea that Yuuri could read his.  But he'd thought that Victor might recognize him as a skater, as a fellow competitor, as... _anything_.

Instead, there was nothing.

Gritting his teeth, Yuuri turned on his heel and stalked away, dragging his suitcase behind him.  A vague flicker of confusion fluttered through Victor's mind, but then Yuri Plisetsky distracted him with a complaint, and even that faintest bit of recognition of Yuuri's existence faded away, forgotten as easily as a wisp of smoke disappeared in the breeze.

* * *

Yuuri could walk away, but that didn't change the fact that in the back of his mind, Victor was always there.  Victor gazed absently out the window as the car took him back to the hotel.  Victor made sure to smile at the fans who crowded the hotel lobby.  Victor mentally scrambled a moment before remembering he was staying in room #1438.  Victor placed his gold medal in the hotel safe, absent-mindedly tucking the ribbon in so it didn't get caught.  Victor paged through the room service menu and ordered dinner.  Victor talked with his coach, Yakov, who critiqued his free skate and then reminded him to pay attention to his competitors, because--

 _Oh_ , Victor thought, surprise mixed with faint sheepishness.  _He was a fellow competitor._

Yuuri cringed and tugged his blankets over his head.  He didn't want to hear this.  He didn't want to know what Victor thought of the hapless, inept Katsuki Yuuri, the skater who'd placed dead last by over 100 points, the man who was too pathetic to walk up to Victor Nikiforov and confess _I'm your soulmate._

 _I suppose it was rude of me_ , _but I don't see where Yuri gets off telling me that_ , Victor thought, a faint tendril of humor curling through his mind.  _Well, I suppose I'll see him at the exhibition tomorrow, or at least at the banquet.  I'll apologize then._

Victor's train of thought cut off there, distracted by--a telephone, yes.  Victor was giving a phone interview.  But only a fraction of his attention was directed toward answering the questions with appropriate trite replies; the rest of his mind was a haze of gray.  _I am, of course, very proud to have won a fifth straight gold at the Grand Prix Finals, especially facing such talented competition_ , part of Victor's mind said.  The rest whispered, low and dull, _I won._   His thoughts were subdued, his emotions flat.  _Again._   There was not the slightest glimmer of gold.

 _I'm so **tired**_ , Victor's voice whispered.  There was no victory, no glory.  Nothing but a vague sense of emptiness. 

Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face into his pillow.  _Victor_ , he thought miserably, and wished he knew which of them was more miserable.

* * *

While the sting of humiliating defeat had receded somewhat by the next day, it had been replaced by anxiety at the prospect of showing his face in front of all the athletes, coaches, sponsors, and staff who had witnessed his utter meltdown on the ice.

"Do I have to go to the banquet?" Yuuri asked.

Celestino sighed.  "Yes, Yuuri," he said, somehow still managing to sound patient.  "You have to go to the banquet."

So Yuuri put on his suit and followed Celestino to the ballroom where the banquet was being held and said not a word to anyone.  In the back of his mind he could still sense Victor, who was already bored by the proceedings. 

What if Victor saw him?  What if Victor remembered him from yesterday?  What if Victor _tried to apologize_?  The very idea froze Yuuri on the spot.  How was he supposed to respond to that?  What was he supposed to say if Victor's thoughts contradicted his words?  What if--

"Mr. Katsuki!" a voice called out in English.  A tall beefcake of a man walked up to Yuuri, jerking him out of his panicked reverie.  He held a hand outstretched, so Yuuri shook it, functioning on autopilot.  He had no idea who this man was.  "Congratulations on your first Grand Prix Finals," the man said, his voice booming.  "Though I'm sure it wasn't the result you were looking for.  Still, what an experience!  You must be very proud of having come this far."

 _I humiliated myself on the world stage,_ Yuuri thought blankly.  _I disappointed my country, m_ _y dog died, and my soulmate has absolutely no idea who I am._ What was he supposed to say?

"It was quite the experience," Yuuri said.  "It's reminded me of how much talent there is out there, and how much farther I have to go."

The man let out an enormous guffaw.  "That's the way to look at it!" he exclaimed, slapping Yuuri on the back.  "Forward-thinking, that's what any athlete has to be."

The man was so raucous and uninhibited that everyone in the vicinity turned to look at him--and, by extension, Yuuri.  Yuuri could feel his cheeks heating up.  "It's been a pleasure talking to you," he blurted, "now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go get something to drink."  And without waiting for a response, he ducked away, heading to the table where rows of champagne glasses waited to be taken in hand.

 _There he is_ , Victor's voice whispered.  _I should apologize for yesterday._

Yuuri grabbed a flute of champagne and shot it like vodka.  He put the glass down, grabbed another, drank that too.  And a third, for good measure.  _Liquid courage_ , he thought, a bit dizzily.

_Wow, he's really downing that champagne._

Another glass.  Another.  Another.

_Is he okay?_

Another.

Another.

And another.

* * *

He remembered the fizz of champagne on his tongue.  The bitter edge, the underlying hint of fruitiness.  The way it slid down his throat, glass after glass.

He remembered laughter, applause, the thumping of feet on the floor.

He remembered a hand warm in his, a flash of gleeful surprise, an uplifting flood of pure joy.

He remembered--

* * *

_Yuuri.  Yuuri.  Yuuri._

Yuuri groaned.  The sound of his own voice sent pangs of agony shooting through his skull.  He groaned again.  His limbs didn't want to cooperate with him, but he managed to press a hand against his temple.  His head pounded.  His stomach roiled as though it were trying to devour itself.  The sunlight streaming through the window was nearly blinding even through his closed eyelids.

_Yuuri._

"Up," Yuuri mumbled in English, "I'm up."  His voice was slurred; his tongue was thick and dry in his mouth.  He rolled over in bed and collapsed from the effort.  He emitted a low moan.  _I'm hung over_ , he realized.  _How much did I drink last night?_

He tried to think, but the effort alone made his head throb and his stomach curdle.  No matter how he trawled through his memory, he came up with nothing but a few glasses of champagne, then a few more, and then--

 _Yuuri_.

"I'm up already," Yuuri said.  He pushed himself upright, rubbed his face, and pried his gummy eyes open.  He was back in his hotel room, although he had no recollection of how he'd gotten there.  He was wearing his dress shirt, his pants, and one sock.  His suit jacket lay crumpled on the floor, and--

\--and there was no one else in his room.

Yuuri blinked groggily, craning his head to look around the entire room.  He was alone. Hadn't someone been calling his name?  He'd thought it would be Celestino, perhaps waking him to to catch their flight back to Detroit, but--no, wait, Celestino didn't have a copy of his room key, and--

 _Yuuri_.

Yuuri's eyes snapped open wide, because he knew that voice.  He'd know that voice anywhere.

 _Victor_ , he thought, dumbfounded.  For a split second, he thought he was imagining things, or that perhaps Victor was thinking of Yuri Plisetsky again.  But even hung over and sick as a dog, Yuuri knew Victor's mind, could understand it inside and out and forward and back, and Victor was thinking of him.

_Him._

Yuuri swallowed.  Fractured images came trickling in from Victor's mind, disjointed snapshots were far too real.  Yuuri chugging champagne.  Yuuri breakdancing.  Yuuri stripping to his boxer briefs and pulling himself up onto a _dance pole_.

Yuuri buried his face in his hands and let out a weak, pathetic moan, a sound of pure mortification.  He had no memory of it, not the slightest shred, but the mental images in Victor's mind were too solid, too certain, to be anything but reality.  Yuuri had gotten himself blackout drunk last night and, true to his Katsuki heritage, had made an absolute fool of himself.  A dance-off with Yuri Plisetsky?  _Pole dancing_ with Christophe Giacometti?

Yuuri collapsed back into bed, whimpering.  "Never again," he mumbled, "I am never drinking alcohol ever _ever_ again--"

And worst of all, he'd humiliated himself in front of Victor.  His _soulmate_.  Victor had seen him at the lowest points of his life, had seen Yuuri suffer not one but _two_ complete and total mental breakdowns.  The very idea made Yuuri wish a hole would open up in the earth and swallow him whole.  He would have to live the rest of his life knowing that he'd disgraced himself in front of his soulmate, and live knowing _exactly_ what his soulmate thought of him.

 _Yuuri_ , Victor's mind repeated, and Yuuri covered his ears as though that could block out Victor's mind.

But then his breath caught in his throat and he froze, because Victor's thoughts were crystal clear.  _Yuuri_ , Victor's mind whispered, full of longing and giddiness, and this--this wasn't what Yuuri had expected.  There was no secondhand embarrassment, no scorn or jeering, no superior sniffing or exasperation.  There was nothing but excitement and anticipation, and now Victor was pulling out his phone and swiping through pictures, and--

They'd danced.

Last night, he'd danced with Victor, bright-eyed and smiling and full of abounding joy.  Victor had held his hand and laughed and gazed at him like he'd never seen anything like Yuuri before.  Yuuri had wrapped his arms around Victor and looked up at him and said, "Victor, be my coach."  And Yuuri didn't remember it, any of it, but Victor did, and--

And in Victor's mind, it was a beautiful, precious scene, one that made him whisper Yuuri's name with a singing heart.

Yuuri flung himself out of bed, took the fastest shower in the history of mankind, yanked on his tracksuit from yesterday, shoved his glasses onto his face, and grabbed his room key.  He scoured his memories of Victor's thoughts, _room #1438_ , that was where Victor was staying, and then he ran out of his hotel room, his aching head and his nausea forgotten.

He ran to the elevator bank and punched the up button until an elevator dinged.  He pushed the button for the 14th floor, shifted impatiently as the elevator crawled up the floors, threw himself out the doors as soon as they began cracking open.  He jogged down the hallway, around the corner, to the door of room #1438, and before he could think, he knocked.

A pause.  Confusion flickered across Victor's mind; who would be showing up at his room?   _Maybe Yakov_ , he thought.  "Just a minute," he called out in English, his voice a bit muffled behind the door.  Footsteps.  The door swung open.

Victor Nikiforov stood there, wearing a white bathrobe, his bangs falling over one eye.  His eyebrows twitched together-- _not Yakov?_ \--and then his eyes widened in recognition.  "Yuuri," he breathed.  "What are you doing here?"  But though his words were calm, his thoughts were in a tizzy, excited and nervous and hopeful-- _You came_ , he thought, _you came for me._

"I had to come," Yuuri said.

Victor blinked.  Surprise-- _it's like he heard what I was thinking_ , he thought, and then, amidst a field of skepticism and disbelief, a tiny flicker of hope.  "Yuuri, you--"

"I can hear you," Yuuri blurted.  "Victor--I can _hear you_."

If possible, Victor's eyes went wider.  _It can't be_ , he thought.  _So many people have said it before--_

"I can hear you," Yuuri insisted.  "I'm not lying.  Think of something.  Anything.  I'll prove it to you."

Instantly, an image from last night painted itself across Victor's mind.  The two of them dancing--a pasodoble, a tango.  A dramatic dip.

Yuuri swallowed.  "Last night," he said, "when we danced.  I dipped you, and," Yuuri paused, blushing, "you thought that maybe you could fall in love with someone who made you feel so alive."

Victor stared at him with wide eyes.  The swell of emotion was like dawn cracking the horizon--stunned disbelief giving way to heart-wrenching elation.

 _It's him_ , Victor thought, _it's really him, it really is my soulmate--_

Yuuri reached out, seized a handful of Victor's bathrobe, pressed his forehead against Victor's shoulder.  Victor wrapped his arms around Yuuri in return, burying his nose into Yuuri's hair.

"I can hear you," Yuuri murmured.

"Yuuri," Victor whispered, his voice cracking.  "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you."

**Author's Note:**

> Shichi-go-san (七五三 "seven-five-three") is a traditional ceremony in Japan celebrating children aged three, five and seven. It is traditionally held on November 15 (or the nearest weekend), although this varies by locale. Historically, the three ages marked specific rites of passage, and were divided by sex; nowadays, many parents celebrate all three years for their children regardless of sex, and the traditional rites of passage have been replaced by dressing the children up in traditional clothing and making a shrine or temple visit to pray for the childen's continued health and happiness (and also to take photos, frequently professional ones). Girls will wear kimono and have their hair done up with decorations; boys will wear kimono and hakama and often haori.
> 
> Scores in figure skating used to be judged on what was known as the 6.0 system. There was a _tad bit_ of a scoring scandal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City that led to the scoring system being revamped; the current system, the ISU Judging System, was first tested in the 2003 Grand Prix Series and officially introduced in 2004. Depending on what year you think Yuri!!! on Ice takes place, that puts Yuuri somewhere around 12 when the new scoring system was introduced.
> 
> Come of Age Day (成人の日 "adult day") is a Japanese holiday that celebrates those who have reached the age of majority (in Japan, 20 years of age). Young adults who turned 20 in the previous year dress in traditional clothes and attend a coming-of-age ceremony, typical at a local government office.


End file.
